However the CCJ rules this land will not be the better for it

I am sifting through the thrusts, reactions, and signals emanating from the amphitheatre that is the CCJ. T20 and the rest have all come to a standstill; a lot of Guyana is at a virtual standstill, and this is not within the legal and political realms alone. What will be handed down, at the end of it all, from that young, but increasingly wise-beyond-its-years body? For some it will be the sagacity of the Sanhedrin; for another party, it would be the finality of a Star Chamber.

Editor, I must be clear up front: I peer and pass quickly by the spectacle that is the CCJ. Because I am convinced that however that body rules, this land will not be the better for it. To be sure, there will be the grudging compliance that comes with the mystery of some equivalent of all deliberate speed, and the limitations that goes along with such. For after the verdict(s) of the CCJ, there will be stone-walling and obfuscating for as long as it takes. I think that that political die is already cast.

Still, I find it refreshing that five unrelated bodies can sit down, like surgeons, and deliberate as to what and how to dissect the tumours and diseases that are of Guyana; the breathing carcass that it has become. That they can and are doing so bloodlessly. I hear of consultation that should have happened; I think they must be living in Himalayan isolation; for that goes nowhere in this no man’s land of every man for himself. I read of no “defection” provisioned for in the sacred Guyanese constitution, and I perk up. That is a dangerous word, a dirty one, too. For defection in my book equates with abandonment of post, premeditated betrayal, and consorting with the enemy. Note: enemy, not adversary. For this is how far and deep is the gutter that is Guyana.

Whether it is or isn’t, that no-confidence vote (now defection) of a “usurper” has inflicted incalculable damage on an already mangled Guyanese racial psyche. No CCJ pronouncement is going to heal that wound. Not in my time at least; and not with what did emerge after the pre-Christmas surprise on that now troubled evening in late December as to how this society really is lost. I think it should be clear (again) that whatever and however the CCJ arbitrates, and for all the soundest reasons in the world, this country and its peoples will be more unsettled and acrimonious than before.

As to the assertions tabled before the CCJ about using the expired list of once eligible voters, I can visualize the learned justices being tempted to go in that direction. On the other hand, I would be hard pressed to imagine that jurists with regional proximity, and no limits on sensitivity, intelligence, mathematical and demographical logic coming down on the side of a list that identifies 85% of the population as eligible.

Either people do not die here, nor are born here and have a childhood here, nor emigrate from here. In other words, there are only consenting and eligible adults ready to cast the franchise, and to the massive (perhaps unprecedented anywhere) tune of approximately 85% of citizens.

Having said this, I did express my own position for the compromise of an election date sometime in July, and as urged by outsiders. Gecom indicated its readiness for sometime in November. Now, in early May, I am going to be so bold as to predict that election has a strong likelihood of wending its way straight into next year. The government had all along had its eyes on 2020. I am unwilling to give it credit for that strategically perfect 20/20 vision. Yes, I believe that that is where matters will end up after all the hullabaloo and heavy-duty (but unstirring) pontifications unfolding before the CCJ. And when the CCJ pronounces from its judicial Mount Sinai, there will be staggered obedience to the less than ten commandments delivered. The apostate in me cannot help but to accept matters in this backsliding manner. Regrettably, I know this country.